


terrible sting and terrible storm

by hotmesslewis



Category: Historical RPF, Lewis and Clark
Genre: Bondage, Flirting, M/M, Rope Bondage, Strip Tease, your kinks are showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 12:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: There's a storm raging.  Things get intense.  Trust comes into question.





	terrible sting and terrible storm

“Show me how to tie those knots.”  Captain Meriwether Lewis approached William Clark, who leaned precariously over the edge of the water as he secured the oars of one of the expedition party’s boats, and watched over his shoulder with interest as Clark worked with almost thoughtless diligence.

“Knots?”  asked Clark with an incredulous grin, looking back over his shoulder at the tall, lean, brown-haired captain.  “What do you need to know about knots?”

“Nothing in particular,” Lewis said, avoiding eye contact and casually fidgeting with the cuff of his buckskin coat.  “I merely thought that it might be a wise precaution, in case you should ever find yourself incapacitated, for me to know the proper way to secure the boats and oars.”

“You really needn’t concern yourself, Meriwether; many of the other men, particularly some of my seafaring men, can easily do the job for you.  In the _highly unlikely_ circumstance that I find myself incapacitated, of course.”

“Of course,” Lewis replied, looking earnestly at Clark.  “But surely you realize that I will feel compelled to check after any one of your men, to make sure that the job was done properly.  You know me, Billy.”

Clark bit back his retort.  They were, after all, captains on duty; this was not the time or the place for him to respond that, indeed, he knew Meriwether Lewis _quite_ well.  “Very well, Meriwether.”  Clark rocked back onto his heels and gestured for Lewis to sit on the ground next to him. Taking two spare lengths of rope, he handed one to Lewis, and began to demonstrate.

“The most basic knot is the square knot—you probably already know this one.  It’s quite simple: you merely take the ends of the rope, twist one end over the other, and twist them back again, and pull to.  See, you’ve already got that one down.

“Because I like to keep my work as uncomplicated and efficient as possible, I really only work with a couple of other knots, with some slight variations for greater security.  There’s the two-half hitch, which is the one that you’ll want to use to secure a boat to a post—you put the rope around the post, like so, make a loop around the rope with its end before passing that end through the loop—that’s your first hitch—and repeating for your second hitch.  Then there’s the bowline; again, easy but surprisingly sturdy.  You start by making a loop like this, the pulling the end of the rope through that loop, about the standing end of the rope, then passing it through the loop again—no, that’s backwards, try again.  That’s better, Meriwether.

“The final one that you should know is the sheet bend, which is actually one of the best ways of tying two ropes together.”  Clark shifted closer to Lewis and worked with Lewis’s piece of rope as he explained and Lewis held the rope steady.  His large hands danced with surprisingly speed and delicacy as he worked, skimming the surface of Lewis’s hands like a dragonfly over water, but never actually touching them.  “It’s actually quite similar to the basic square knot, really—make a loop in the first rope like this, then pass the end of the second one through it, around the entire loop, then through it, between the first and the second like so.  Now you try it.”  Lewis recreated the sheet bend knot almost perfectly, to Clark’s satisfaction, before letting the two knotted pieces of rope drop to the ground and lacing his fingers through Clark’s.  Clark quickly glanced around to ensure that no one was watching them before bringing the back of Lewis’s hand to his lips for a kiss soft as the falling of a leaf.  The two men parted, and Lewis smiled his secret smile as a dusky blush rose up on his neck.

-

Captain William Clark stood like a tree on the lip of the river, staring out across the angry waters and the angrier storm.  The wind tore through the trees surrounding him and thunder grumbled discontentedly in the distance.  Clark ignored the rain seeping down his coat collar and through his thick linen shirt as he watched the scene.

They would not be moving on today.

He managed to keep his face blank, but he couldn’t help but express his frustration in some manner.  He stooped to pluck a nearby rock from its muddy bed and straightened to throw it with all of his might into the river, a futile attack against the immovable force of nature.  Hard as he looked and listened, he couldn’t make out the sight or sound of the splash over the pounding rain.

Sighing in defeat, Clark returned to the captains’ tent, lit by a dancing candle in the corner and an oil lamp on Lewis’s half-sized travel desk.

Lewis was waiting, and asked the question with his eyes.  Clark responded with only a tightening of his lips.

“Damn.”

“If the rain keeps up like this,” Clark said, lifting the flap of their tent to stare out at the dismal sky and overflowing river again, “it might be a couple of days before I’d feel comfortable moving on that river.”

“Double damn.”  Lewis sat down heavily on the chair before his desk and glared at the papers before him.

Clark watched the brooding Lewis with soft eyes.  Not being able to move on was frustrating to him too, of course, but sometimes it seemed as though the least little setback caused Lewis to destroy himself.  Clark worried for him.  “Hey, it’s not all bad, though, Meriwether.  I have no doubt the men will appreciate the break and the rest—”

“Oh, will they?  When we’re running short on food?”  Lewis’s tone was poisonous.

“—and you could use some rest yourself, if I may say.”  Lewis turned his glare from the objects on the desk before him back to Clark, to find Clark had moved to sit on the ground right behind him.  Clark stared up at him with hazel eyes quietly begging like Seaman’s eyes for scraps around the campfire dinners.  Clark leaned his cheek against the back of the chair; their faces were only inches away from each other.  “Please, Meriwether.  Be kind to yourself.  Relax a bit, everything will work out fine.  We’ll be back on course in no time.”

Lewis could not help but weaken to Clark, and offered him a placating smile before turning back to his desk and shifting some stacks of his papers. “Very well.  But we have work to do, Captain Clark—I need to revise some of these notes for the President and reorganize most of my samples.  You could aid me, no doubt.”

Clark didn’t respond.  Lewis threw a glance quickly back over his shoulder at the other man, who hadn’t moved. 

“Billy?”  He moistened his lips before turning to look at Clark again.  “Billy, have you been listening to me?  I could really—” Lewis stopped short when he saw the bright mischievousness in Clark’s eyes.  “No.”

Clark looked away from Lewis, fighting to suppress an impish grin.

“ _No_ ,” Lewis said with more firmness.

“It wouldn’t even take that long, Meriwether.”

“‘It wouldn’t take that long?’  _Really_ , Billy?  Because, if I remember correctly, last time you said that it was approaching an hour before …” Lewis trailed off, glancing at the tent flap with some concern.

Clark chuckled deeply, rumbling distantly like the thunder in the hills.  “Put yourself at ease, Meriwether—no one can hear us over that storm, no matter what sounds we make.  And I would like to remind you that it _wouldn’t_ have taken so long last time, had you not repeatedly encouraged me.”

“Oh-ho!  So you’re going to blame _me_ for the—”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I _am_.”

Clark stood as Lewis turned away to hid his grin.  “Not today, Billy.  Not right now.”

“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind, I suppose?”  Clark walked around the chair to face Lewis, and took him by the hands.

“No.”

“Not even this?”  He pulled Lewis to his feet and pushed him back into the short desk.  Clark was still wearing his coat and breeches dripping with rain, but he leaned his chest into Lewis’s anyway, his wet coat front sliding against Lewis’s thin shirt.  One arm snaked around Lewis’s waist while the other large hand cupped the back of Lewis’s head, fingers mixing in the brown hair, as their mouths met.  Lewis had to clutch the desk to keep support as he let himself fall into Clark’s kiss.  After a moment, they broke apart.

“No,” Lewis said into Clark’s neck with a sad smile.  “Not even that will change my mind, Billy.”  He gently pushed Clark away from him before running his hands down his now-damp shirt with some exasperation.  With a sigh, he worked the bottom of the shirt from his tight waistband and peeled the shirt off in one fluid motion.  Clark watched him hungrily—his flush rising on his neck, Lewis turned from Clark to spread his shirt over a barrel along the side of their tent to dry.  He was hardly surprised when he felt the palm of Clark’s hand on his back, or the brush of Clark’s lips on his shoulder.  “William.  We have work to do.”  Lewis pulled away coldly and sat back down at his travel desk.  “Now get out of those ridiculous wet clothes and come help me.”

Frustration soaked his sigh as Clark stepped out of his moccasins.  He looked down as he began to undo the wooden buttons of his fringed coat, glancing up under his eyebrows to mark Lewis watching him from the corner of his eye with the slightest smile.  Realizing he had an audience, reluctant though that audience might be, Clark turned his disrobing into something of a show.  He threw back his head and shook out his red mane as he finished with the buttons and let the coat fall from his shoulders, pausing for a moment before dropping the coat to the ground and kicking it to the corner with his foot.  Looking down again, he tugged his shirt hem from his waistband with an almost agonizing slowness, turning his back toward Lewis before pulling the shirt over his head, the muscles in his back rippling smoothly under the skin.  With glance back at the grudgingly appreciative Lewis, Clark toyed with the waistband of his breeches for a moment, before shedding his pants and his undergarment in one smooth motion and stepping out of the clothes almost delicately.  Lewis made a muffled sound between a snort and a guffaw somewhere behind him.  Fighting his grin, Clark circled to face Lewis, his legs spread broadly, and placed his fists on his hips.  He shook his thick hair out of his eyes.  “Is that better, Captain Lewis?”

Lewis couldn’t help himself; he laughed.

Meriwether Lewis rarely laughed genuinely, but when he did he had a laugh like a waterfall: unstoppable and thunderous, unexpected and very nearly harsh, but if one listened close enough there was something undeniably musical in it, water like fine crystal breaking over the rocks.  Listening to him, Clark thought that his laugh might be the think he loved best about Meriwether Lewis, because his laugh always felt like a gift.

“Much better, Captain Clark,” Lewis said, after catching his breath.  “Now if you will just put some clothes back on, we can get to work.”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind, sir.”

“Which?  Put on clothes, or help me work?”

Clark sat on the ground in front of the trunk where most of the specimens they had collected thus far on the journey were kept.  “Both,” he replied, draping his arms over the trunk as he leaned back against it, curling one leg in towards him.

“Suit yourself, then, sir, but I shall be working regardless.”

Lewis turned his back on the nude man across the tent from him and resumed his work at the desk, ignoring the heat of his neck, the mild hardening below his waist, and the salty bite of lust in the back of his throat.  He was fully attentive to his work, the careful rewording of some of his papers, the double-checking of facts, for a quarter of an hour, until he realized that he needed to reference another logbook—a logbook that happened to be stored in the chest on which the naked Clark was lounging like some entitled titian god.  Lewis swore silently into the lamplight.  He stood and crossed the tent, prepared to make Clark move, if necessary.

Clark watched Lewis close the space between them in silent admiration, eyes focused on the movement of Lewis—the soft roll of his shoulders as his arms swung slightly, the delicate definition of the chest, the mesmerizing shift of the narrow hips and the muscles that could be seen through the material of the breeches.  As Lewis stood over Clark, Clark looked up into his serious face, before hooking his fingers on the waistband of Lewis’s pants and bringing the younger man to his knees.  Their mouths met, their lips parted, but Clark felt the resistance, not so much of Lewis’s body as of his mind.  Even in the kiss, Lewis was reaching around him, lifting him off of the trunk, fumbling through it for the logbook he needed.

Clark pulled back.  “Meriwether, really.”

Lewis leaned over him, their bare chests meeting, as he looked deeper into the trunk.  He gathered the logbook he was searching for and a few lengths of rope, before rolling back on his heels and standing in one smooth motion.  “I’m sorry, Billy, truly I am.  But I just can’t right now.”  He began walking back to his desk, but stopped halfway there.  He spoke without turning to face the dejected Clark.  “You’re not going to give this up, are you?”

“No,” Clark answered with determination.  “No, I’m not.  I want you, Meriwether.  And I will have you.”

Meriwether Lewis closed his eyes and smiled quietly to himself.  “Put on some clothes, Captain Clark, and do something productive, if you please.”

“Aren’t you going to put on a shirt, Captain Lewis?” Clark asked coolly.

Lewis sat down at his desk again and glanced down at his bare chest, the burning paleness in the light of the candles.  “I wasn’t really planning to.”

“Oh, good.”  Lewis could hear the trouble in Clark’s voice.  “Then you won’t mind if I wear one of your shirts.”

“You wouldn’t dare …”  Lewis whirled around to see Clark drawing on one of his finest cotton shirts, red head and hands disappearing momentarily in the surprisingly crisp whiteness.  “William Clark, take my shirt off right this instant.  Who knows how you will manage to stain it, or rip a seam, or—”

“Looks rather fetching, actually, does it not?” Clark commented, admiring the lean fit of the smaller man’s shirt.  “I should wear tighter clothing more often.”

“Clark, that was an _order_.”

“Admit it, Meriwether—your fine shirt looks quite well on me.”

Lewis stood, seeming to tower over Clark despite being a couple of inches shorter than him.  His eyes and voice were thunder.  “Captain Clark, I command you to take off my shirt, and to get down on your knees.”

Clark’s heart halted, hardly hoping Lewis was yielding.  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“You heard me, Clark— _on your knees_.”

Clark dropped before Lewis, yanking the shirt over his head and tossing it into one of the open trunks behind him.

His eyes were closed, but even were they opened, the rope would have come as a surprise.  Instinct made him throw his eyes open and begin to struggle against the coarse twine across his chest and shoulders, now crossing on his back, but when he saw the tan forearm dappled with fine brown hair that he knew belonged to Lewis, he relaxed and let himself be bound.  The rope passed before his eyes and over his arms one, two, three, four times; he felt four loose loops down his back.  The rope was pulled so tight that Clark could not help but flinch ever so slightly, and then the pressure slackened faintly. Lewis came to stand before him, to kneel before him, staying just out of Clark’s reach, bringing the reminder of the rope to wrap around Clark’s powerful forearms once and around his wrists several times more.  He finished the windings with a thick knot and a heavily ironic smile: “A bowline, Billy.  I think you would find, could you examine it, that my technique is nearly perfect this time.”

“Very good, Captain Lewis,” Clark murmured.  More than anything, he wanted Lewis to leave the ropes alone and _touch him_ , damn it.  “The real question is, can you _untie_ these bonds?”

 Lewis merely shrugged cheerfully before stepping behind Clark and forcing Clark’s spread ankles together.  Another piece of thick cord was wrapped around the ankles and weaved into a tight knot, then Lewis ran his fingers over Clark’s bare feet, watching with dark amusement as Clark squirmed.  Picking up a third piece of rope, he walked around to face Clark again.  He fondled the rope with some indecision as he examined his work, before smiling in satisfaction and tossing it away.  Clark glared up at Lewis, already panting and sweating against his bonds, his cock growing firm despite his need for it not to.  Experimentally, Lewis slipped a foot out from one of his moccasins and ran it up the length of Clark’s growing erection.  Clark moaned and tried to fold in on himself, the ropes digging into his arms and keeping his posture straight.

Lewis spoke, his light Virginian drawl deepening in his desire.  “Why, don’t you look nice like that. Trussed up just like a package waiting to be opened.  If I wouldn’t have just gone to so much work to get those ropes tied, I’d be more than glad to undo them for you.”  He slipped his foot back into the moccasin before sitting back down at his desk and pulling the long and graceful flintlock pistol he always carried with him out from one of the desk drawers and setting to work polishing it.

Clark watched him with growing horror.  “Aren’t you …” he began carefully, searching for the words to tactfully broach the subject, before relenting and plainly asking the question.  “Aren’t you going to have your way with me?”

Lewis looked up at Clark with mock astonishment and a theatrical frown.   “I wasn’t really planning on it.  The ropes are simply the best way I could think of to keep you from pestering me.” 

Lewis struggled to keep his face at Clark’s loud protestations, turning his focus back on the gun he was cleaning and attending to the job with unusual care.  He stressed every movement and worked abnormally slowly, moving his hands along the pistol as if spellbound by the way the gleaming light played along the solid steel of the barrel.  Clark soon fell silent as he watched Lewis work, entranced, unable to tear his eyes from the other man’s hands as they skipped down the flintlock.  His heart pounded in his head as he saw the fingers run over the barrel.  He hardened as he watched the soft cloth Lewis used to polish the gun dip inside the muzzle of the pistol ever so slightly.  He swallowed audibly and shifted uncomfortably as the younger man’s fingers traced the intricate design on handle of the pistol.  Finally Clark could keep his silence no longer, and whispered the name in supplication across the tent: “Meriwether.”

It was impossible that Lewis could have heard the sound of his name over the rush of thunder that came at the moment Clark offered it up, but Lewis looked up as if he sensed it and directly into Clark’s pained face.  His eyes were dark, his expression unreadable.  He tossed the flintlock and the rag back on his desk as he stood, and Clark, even in the dimness of the candlelight and his own hunger, could not fail to notice the solid press of Lewis against the front of his suddenly tight breeches.  Lewis landed on his knees before Clark, and turned the bound man’s face up to his, allowing himself to become possessed in Clark’s kiss.  Lewis briefly lost focus as Clark took his bottom lip between his lips, gently sucking, before taking it between his teeth and biting down, just hard enough to draw blood.  Lewis didn’t feel the pain until he tasted it, metallic and salty, in both of their mouths.  He jerked away, at once indignant and in awe of Clark’s nerve, and gingerly put a finger to his lip.  The tear in his lip was so small as to be completely unnoticeable and he saw no blood on his hand when he drew it away, but he was still piqued.

“Oh, so you want to play rough, then?”  Clark smiled like a snake.  “Fine.”  He returned to his desk, where he picked up the rag he used to clean his pistol, before moving behind Clark and forcing the rag into his mouth, pulling with more force than necessary as he gagged the other man.  He blew out the candle in the corner of the room—only the lamp on his desk gave the men light now.  “Fine,” he repeated, as got down on his knees before Clark again and took Clark’s cock firmly in his grip.

Clark needed to moan, to yell, to say the name that he screamed in his mind, but was reduced to making muffled noises, snorting and panting through his nose like a lathered horse.  He needed to move, needed desperately to touch Lewis in some way as Lewis brought him to the very edge of pure ecstasy before letting him go without giving him release.  To his shame, his eyes watered; he squeezed them shut, but still a tear escaped and tore down the side of his face.  He jerked his head away, hoping that it might escape Lewis’s notice.

But it did not.  Because for the first time Lewis truly watched Clark’s face as he worked, his hands sliding and rubbing down Clark’s throbbing cock, cupping and massaging Clark’s balls, gently toying with the tip of Clark’s head.  And he realized for the first time how little he knew about pain and pleasure, how similar the two were—without Clark being able to tell him what felt good, what he did right, Lewis felt lost.  Clark’s face could have been a mask of perfect pleasure or perfect pain—the furrowed brow, the eyes shut tightly, the beading sweat on the forehead, the teeth biting fiercely against the gag, even the strain of the neck revealed nothing to Lewis save Clark’s intensity.  But that solitary tear made Lewis stop dead, right as he was about to bring Clark to climax.  That tear broke him.

He drew back, watching the other man with a strange distance in his eyes.  Clark continued to thrash helplessly for a few moments, before beginning to settle himself, chest heaving.  He opened his eyes, hazel glowing golden in the lamplight.  Lewis’s face was in shadow.

Lewis handed four words across the dark distance between them.  “Do you trust me?”

Clark gave no response, no nod yes or no; he didn’t even blink.  Lewis leaned forward, pulling his face out of the shadow, his eyes gray and dangerous as the stormy river.  His hands were behind Clark’s head, untying the loose gag.  He let himself lean into Clark’s neck and breathed in the scent of the man heavily—seasoned meat and cedar just masking the smell of rain still clinging to Clark’s skin.  Gag removed, Lewis asked the question again.  “Do you trust me, Billy?”

Clark responded without hesitation.  “You know that I love you.”

Lewis waved aside Clark’s answer with annoyance.  “Yes, yes, I know that you love me.  But do you _trust_ me?”

Clark was momentarily perplexed by the question; surely love and trust were the same thing?  But he realized with a rare flash of intuition that, for Meriwether Lewis, they were not.  Meriwether Lewis could trust people without feeling the slightest bit of affection for them, but he could also love people deeply, intensely, without ever putting his fragile faith in them.  Clark felt as if it were his heart that was so tightly bound by Lewis’s ropes—for a moment, he honestly ached in his chest as he struggled against the weight of a force it knew his all of his love could never overcome.  The moment passed and he answered, knowing that merely the words would never be enough reassurance for Meriwether Lewis.  “If I didn’t trust you completely, Meriwether, I would have never allowed you bind me like this in the first place.”

Lewis tossed aside the gag and was on the other man in an instant, realizing the truth of what Clark had said as he covered Clark’s neck and collar with kisses like raindrops.  Clark was larger than him, and significantly stronger than him—had Clark not trusted him fully, he could have easily resisted the bonds.  But Clark had not.  It was a simple action, perhaps, but it spoke to Lewis in untold volumes.

Lewis crossed Clark’s body with his lips, and Clark moaned in appreciation.  Lewis managed to slide out of his breeches and moved behind Clark, his teeth on Clark’s shoulder until the instant before he leaned Clark forward and positioned himself inside Clark.  Then he did something truly unexpected, pulling Clark back upright as much as humanly possible, wrapping his arms around the man as he gasped in satisfaction.  In comparison with the strength of Lewis’s arms around Clark’s chest, the thick rope felt as useless in keeping him bound as a piece of string would have been.

If Lewis was deeper and moved slower than Clark would have liked, Clark didn’t say anything.  The bliss of being in those arms prevented him from moaning anything comprehensible beyond the name.  At the end, he couldn’t even manage that, gasping out, “Meri!”  As Lewis reached peak, he fell into Clark, who managed to remain steadfast and unbending as Lewis came inside him, even as he shook.

Lewis withdrew and curled himself onto the ground.  “Meri,” he repeated breathlessly, thoughtfully, dreamily.  “I quite like that, Billy.  I’d like for you to call me ‘Meri’ from now on.”  For a moment he closed his eyes and basked in the rare happiness of his own complete joy, warm and bright like sunlight on water.

But Lewis couldn’t avoid the lack Clark still felt, however.  He felt the movement of the man beside him, battling the chafing ropes around his wrists as he sought to give himself release.  Lewis rolled back onto his knees and reached his arms around Clark, stilling the restless hands with his own firm grasp and a soothing hush.  He put his lips to every vertebrae of Clark’s back as his fingers undid the knot of the ropes around Clark’s ankles.  After unwinding the rope, he laid a kiss on the inside of both of Clark’s ankles before standing and helping Clark, unbalanced and unable to use his arms for support, to stand.  Lewis seated Clark on the chair before his travel desk and fell to his knees before him.

He parted Clark’s legs, gazing at Clark’s hardness with silent, leisurely respect.  He lazily rubbed his cheek along the inside of Clark’s thigh like an animal nuzzling its mate affectionately before taking Clark’s heat into the warmth of his own moist mouth.

“You need to shave,” William Clark observed idly before giving himself to the keeping of Meriwether Lewis.

-

They finished in a pause between the heavy storms of the day.  A shaft of sunlight fell across the tent, rudely rousing the dozing lovers, warming the two men even as they sat inside the tent and leaving them feeling exposed. 

William Clark, still trussed, sat slumped and exhausted in the chair. 

Meriwether Lewis rested his head on Clark’s thigh and blinked slowly up at him.  Clark had managed to work one of his hands loose enough from the ropes that he could tangle it in Lewis’s short-cropped hair, which he realized for the first time felt like nothing so much as the downy feathers of a young bird.

Complaining of the sun and yearning for the return of the rains, Lewis turned away and slipped back into his breeches.  He stood and leaned over Clark, preparing to untie the knots that held the bonds.  Clark let his head fall forward into Lewis’s chest, and Lewis laughed freely again, for the second time of the day.

When Lewis didn’t have a laugh like a waterfall, he had a laugh like a shaded natural spring, not so much a sound as a feeling bubbling up deep from within him.  It was a laugh without a beginning and without an end.

“How can you possibly expect me to get these knots undone if you won’t let me see to untie them?” Lewis asked through his happiness.

“I don’t,” Clark responded honestly, but Lewis’s swift and skilled fingers had already worked the bowline knot loose.   Clark leaned back as Lewis uncoiled the rope from around his wrists and unwound it from around his chest, slowly moving his muscles to get feeling back into them and sighing with deep satisfaction.

Lewis stared at the pattern of red welts across Clark’s chest with mute distress.  He’d had no idea that the rope would or could cut that deeply.  The apparent wounds were actually far more superficial than Lewis would have believed, merely red and raw from the recent rubbing of the coarse cord, but Lewis was overcome with guilt.

His fingers traced the pattern of the rope across Clark’s skin.

He gathered his courage and gave words to his question.  “Did it hurt?”

Clark looked down at his skinned wrists, at the red indentions stretching across his chest like lines on a map.  He traced one of the lines himself, until his fingers met with Lewis’s; their fingers twined together, hands knotting into a rope of their own making.  “Yes,” Clark replied honestly, “it did hurt a little bit.”  He turned his autumn-colored eyes up to Lewis’s own two still, blue-gray pools, and saw trust reflected back into his face.  “But it was worth it.”

 

 


End file.
